Knives in the Darkness
by Jessica Robin
Summary: Candice has been in Harper Rock for the last four years, digging into possible solutions behind the Quarantine Zone. Whoever would have guessed as to the real answer? - Marvel Cinematic Universe and Path of the Vampire crossover. MCU: Shortly after Avengers. Current in Path. Candice is an original character.
1. Prologue

Harper Rock had been on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar since the first person rose from the dead. The situation hadn't been very severe at first, not enough to warrant more than a single agent's presence. That was Agent Candice Wilson, who still barely looked like she was out of high school, like she ought to be chewing bubble gum and flirting with the football team. But she was twenty-five years old at the time, and knew a multitude of ways to kill a grown man.

Appearances were deceiving, and she was a prime example. Five feet, two inches tall, with golden blonde hair that fell in natural ringlets when she let it down, and cool cerulean eyes framed with fine golden lashes that she was honestly proud of, she was often described as something straight from a fairy tale by her peers. At least, until her high kick slammed into their face, or the heel of her hand slammed into their nose.

Agent Wilson was deadly, and she loved every second of it.

Then she started picking up on the unusual supernatural occurrences, the out-of-place minor earthquakes, the public necking, the increase in gunfire. Several times, she nearly drew her weapon herself, to break up a gun battle in the streets.

It had been four years, and she'd finally put things together. She had remained stationed here, in Harper Rock, Ontario, without the Canadian government's express knowledge, and she'd finally figured things out.

Harper Rock was full of vampires, hiding just beneath a human veneer.

The revelation, combined with all of the videos, photographs, and eyewitness accounts, had her calling her superior officer. "Agent Hill, this is Agent Wilson. I finally figured it out, and you might want to have Director Fury send an additional officer or two up here."

"_What's the situation, Wilson?"_ Maria asked, solidly business.

"Vampires. I'm emailing you the files. Standard triple encryption. I know you can crack that."

"_Agent Wilson, you had best not be pulling a prank."_

"You know me better than that, Agent Hill.


	2. Chapter 1

Jessica's hazel eyes followed the acidic green demi-fae's movements carefully, left hand locked around the hilt of her enchanted longsword. She hated these bastards nearly as much as they hated her own kind. But, sometimes it was a necessary evil, summoning the very creatures who would so love to tear vampire society limb from limb.

"One has spread the secret," the creature hissed, flinching away from the edge of the binding circle as she spoke that final word.

"Where?" the blonde Mystic asked. She sought government agents with this ritual, but hadn't expected such a reply, and she knew she didn't have all that much longer before she'd lose the circle.

"A motel in Swansdale. Room 211. Go now! She may know more than she seems…" And with that, the demi-fae vanished, taking with him whatever secrets he knew. Resisting the urge to growl, Jessica left the smallest room of her Corvidae Flats apartment, where she kept her fae altar, and pulled her phone from the table beside the door. She needed to find this woman and fast. Whoever she really was, she could be either an asset or a detriment.

But, honestly? Jessica wanted her.

* * *

Three hours after sending the files, Candice's phone was ringing. Not her cover phone – her phone. The one that meant she'd been right. Steeling her nerve, the blonde picked up the device with a deep breath and spoke. "Hello?"

"Agent Wilson, this is Agent Simmons," a friendly, accented female voice replied. "Agent Hill sent the files over. I've been going over the data and it is honestly astonishing. For four years – four years! That's a high number! – an entire society has been hiding right under our noses! Do you think you could bring us samples?"

"Don't remind me, Agent Simmons, and I doubt samples would be very possible. It is all real, though. I've seen this stuff with my own eyes. Hell, I'm damn sure I've even been a feeding victim."

"You've listed the possible symptoms as short-term amnesia, soreness in one or both sides of the neck, and lightheadedness?"

"Yes, that makes the most sense. And if it lasts over a period of time, say, someone's developed an interest, a person could develop anemia from being fed on."

Suddenly, and rather astonishingly, there was a knock at the door of Candice's motel room. She always had the Do Not Disturb sign hung on her door – a knock at the door from anyone but the manager was a problem. "Pentacle Teahouse tea delivery! A gift from an admirer!"

"Who's at the door?" Agent Simmons wondered, on the phone as she was.

"I am not sure I even want to find out the answer to that question," Candice replied, even as she made her way across the room to the door and peeked out through the peephole, even as her free hand, without the phone in it, reached into the mini-closet – which she'd turned into her personal, portable armory. For a moment, just a split half-second, her hand hovered over the grip of her Taurus Judge – one of her more personal guns - before she pulled the Ruger SP101 .327 Federal from its little cubbie and slipped it into the back of her jeans. "I'll call you back?"

"Yeah, of course!" Agent Simmons replied, before there was a soft click over the line.

This entire time, Candice's blue eyes studied the tall blonde who stood outside her door holding a plain cardboard box. Her plain white tank top was worn, well loved perhaps, but the pale blue peasant skirt looked brand new. She looked harmless enough. But then, so did Candice. Knowing what she knew now about this city, the petite agent wasn't about to be duped into anything she couldn't get out of. Still, she tugged a couple dresses in front of her guns and opened the door, until the chain caught.

"Hi, my name's Jessica. I work at the Pentacle Teahouse. Someone sent me over with an order of loose tea leaves for you, along with an infuser," the other blonde said, smiling gently. "Can I come in?"

"There's supposed to be a Do Not Disturb sign on the door," Candice muttered, glancing at the handle. The scrap of cardboard was gone.

"I saw one down the hall, on the floor. Maybe one of the neighbors pulled it down?"

She seems nice, Candice thought, as she unhooked the chain. "Yeah, you can come in. Set the box on the mini fridge." One hand remained on the Ruger in her back pocket as she moved to a protective position in front of her highly sensitive laptop, and the SHIELD files that sat next to it.

"Really like what you've done with the drab motel room standard," the other women replied, gesturing to the mess of papers strewn about on the bed and floor. Mostly insignificant information with maybe a scrap or two of sensitive data. "You been staying here long?"

"Four years. Got a long-term lease with the manager. You got some other reason to be here?"

Jessica grinned broadly, those hazel eyes of hers shining as she stepped closer to the other woman. "You know too much, honey. You're coming with me, to my apartment."

With that Jessica's long thin, empty hand wound around Candice's upper arm, just as she drew her gun, though it was useless. In a blink of an eye, they weren't in the motel room 211 in Swansdale anymore.

Now, they were surrounded by a small army of the dead. The Quarantine.

* * *

_"Agent Barton, this is Agent Hill. I've got an urgent situation involving an agent you helped train. Harper Rock, Ontario, Canada. Agent Wilson may be in grave danger. She has incredibly sensitive knowledge concerning a localized situation."_

"Candice is a big girl, Maria. Do you think she'd want someone to save her?"

_"No, Clint. But she might need it."_

"Where was she last seen?"

_"In the old Gambondale district of Harper Rock. Now known best as the Quarantine. Chock full of zombies and other creatures that we don't want the general public to see. But she didn't walk in. She appeared there, with another woman."_

"Just what I need, a teleporter. I'll let you know when I find her."

_"Thank you, Clint. Transport will be there in an hour. And as always...be careful."_

"Always am, Maria. Always am."

As he slipped the phone into a pocket of his pack, Agent Clint Barton took a deep breath and settled in to wait. Right now, he really didn't have anything else to do.


	3. Chapter 2

"What the hell are we doing here?!" Candice squealed as she fired her last round into the face of a zombie that was trying to hear her arm off, finally getting it to let go, and, though unwillingly, following Jessica into what looked like safety. An elevator in the center of the room. Great. "Apartment living for vampires?"

"You got it," Jessica replied, smirking as she hit the button for the door to close before pressing the number six. "I have to ask you not go run while I explain everything. Because you know way too much and have very good connections, I have decided that, rather than do what most of my kind would call the sensible thing and murder you outright, I am going to make you into a vampire. Now, I am going to be honest, there is a high chance that the way I have to do it will kill you anyway. Please don't let this influence your choice to stick around, as I have not yet once succeeded at bringing another into vampirism. And by the way, I can't tell lies, at all."

"So how'd you -"

"Called in the order myself. It was true because I do admire you for your boldness, and I do work at the Pentacle Teahouse. Great place, by the way."

Candice nodded slightly, not really paying attention to the other woman's rambling. She was off on a tangent, it seemed, and showed no signs of slowing down. But as the doors slid open, Candice found herself dragged from the elevator across the floor to the door of an apartment.

"Welcome home. I know it's not much, but it's where I live."

"So, you're a vampire, then? For real?"

"Yes. I am a Mystic vampire, to be absolutely specific. My kind finds it simplest to access the arcane arts. And to teleport."

"How many types are there?"

"Six in all. Killer, Necromancer, Shadow, Mystic, Telepath, and Allurist. My own maker, my sire, is of the Killer type."

"So, your vampire bloodline makes no bearing on your abilities?"

"No. It is all within you, and your spirit. I'm the only Mystic of my vampire siblings, the others are all Allurists. Which, as I hear, isn't all that common." A light sigh escaped Jessica as she guided the agent info the master bedroom. "I am sorry, but I need to do this."

All of a sudden, Candice found herself flat on her back on the bed, ankles being bound to the lower bedposts with heavy iron cuffs. Old fashioned things that needed padlocks. "What the fuck?!"

"I can't have you escaping in the middle of the process. You have to stay here, not immobile, but in this room. The plumbing works, but I don't think you'll really need to use the restroom, as you'll probably be throwing up quite a bit."

"You're joking."

"I bear a curse, it seems. Most of my kind can transform a human into one of us in a single night. I...can't. And I've lost every single attempt I've made, either because I couldn't stop drinking, or because they refused to drink any further. I need you to promise me that, no seeker what happens, once you've taken my blood and I yours, that you won't refuse the next night's taste, and the one after, until you rise as a vampire. Do I have your word?"

"If I can have your name, you shall have my word," Candice replied, grinning.

Jessica sighed, binding down the human woman's wrists with the same sort of shackles. "My name is Jessica," she said softly. "Your word...and your name."

"I, Candice Eloise Wilson, give you my sincere word as an agent of SHIELD, I shall not refuse so long as I am able to accept the blood that is offered."

"That's all I'm asking for," Jessica grinned as she sank her sharp, razor-like fangs into Candice's throat, drinking deeply.

It was a rush unlike any other, Jessica would never deny. The first moment blood hit her tongue, she found herself lost to the rush of flavor that was Candice's life spilling into her mouth. It was like this every time she fed, like an addiction that could never quite be sated. She found herself struggling to pull back, as she did every night, every time she fed, every throat she ripped into with her gracious power to hypnotize a victim away from a crowd of people. The rush was always there, inescapable, waiting for her each night.

When she finally pulled back, Jessica looked up to Candice's face, ensuring to herself that she had not taken too much. Ever so thankfully, Candice sat up slightly, as much as the manacles would allow her, and smiled. "My turn?" she asked.

"Are you...joking with me?" Jessica asked, even as she raised the thin knife from the bedside table and slit open her own wrist, pressing it to Candice's mouth before the human could reply.

The taste of the Mystic's blood was just that - blood. It was stagnant, dead, yes, but there was a spark that Candice could feel working at her veins, tugging at them, trying to work a spell of some sort. It was like -

"Oh, shit!" Candice squealed as the nausea and pain struck her, causing her sides to contract and her body to curl inward. This had never been covered in any of her training.

"I know it hurts, Candice," Jessica said softly, resting her arm around the elder woman gently. "You can make it through this. I know you can."

* * *

As Clint climbed out of the aircraft in Canada, the first thing he noticed was how cold it was. Sure, Russia was easily worse, but Clint wasn't Russian. He was an American boy with a talent for archery.

Signaling to the pilot that he'd go forward on his own, he made to climb down the broken fire escape of the grocery store inn what was once Gambondale. His hood was up, gear strapped to his back where he could get to it, bow in hand, when he saw it. A massive, lumbering creature that looked like an amalgam of flesh, limbs, jaws, and eyes. It had four arms, three legs on which it scuttled like a crab, at least five visible eyes of different colors, and two parallel mouths.

Not knowing what it was, exactly, Clint simply ran. Unfortunately, the mooncalf have chase, swinging massive arms at the archer until he ducked into a doorway that, the sign read, was the entrance to Corvidae Flats. The very building it was believed Candice and her captor had gone into. The mooncalf's frame was far too large to fit through the door, however. So, for now, Clint was safe.

Until he saw the mass of zombies awaiting him inside. It was really all he could do to make his way through quiet and slow, not disturbing any of the beasts. This alone was a chore: the worst part of making it through was finding out that his goal was an elevator.

* * *

As the evening wore on, Candice fell asleep, and Jessica found herself in the section of the main room she dedicated to get personal art of dance. Spinning, swirling, inverting, flipping, twirling on the pole was fabulously cathartic for the Mystic, no matter the chaos her life seemed to take on.

No matter what, dance was always there.

Ironically, dance was the thing that caused her to be found. The dance room door was wide open while she danced, and the front door was unlocked, as always, because what fool human would stumble into Corvidae Flats?

It turned out, after three songs, not a fool human, but an agent of SHIELD and Avenger in his own right who would find her, and by extension, her potential childe.

_"Come on, Agent Wilson. Let's get you out of here."_

She heard the words, soft as a whisper, between songs as she straightened her top, and they made her livid. On a snap instinct, she drew the Enchanted Longsword that had been her trusted companion for so long now from its sheath and stepped out of the dance room, just as Clint Barton opened her front door to carry Candice outside.

"I hate to tell you this, man. But if you take her out of here, she's already dead."


End file.
